Hi everyone! I'm doing a paper for my soc. class about the prevalence of gender identity disorder in children/adolescents. In recent years, it seems to be a more visible topic....

Is this do to hormonal changes in our environment? Is our environment CREATING more trans people?
Or is reporting of childhood GID on the rise?

I have a few thoughts and theories, but I'd also like yours.

Thanks!!

Take a look at the impact the Internet has had on the transgender world (every aspect of transgender).  Practically everyone I've talked to has said without the Internet it is doubtful they would have the knowledge they have today, they would have met the people they have and they would have gotten the support they have.

The stigma trans people faced was so negative it kept most of us deep in the closet.  Coming out was too risky.  We now know there are considerably more TGs out there then we thought a couple of decades ago.

With new non-discrimination laws being passed and with sensitive documentaries being shown on national TV, the general public is becoming more aware that TGs aren't sex workers or perverts, they are everyday people.  And the fear of coming out is lessening, as is the shame of being TG.

I don't believe there's been an increase in the numbers, only the reporting.  When being TG is as acceptable as being gay or (I won't hold my breath) having red hair, I believe we will begin to see some numbers that will surprise everyone.

Our environment isn't creating more trans people, just allowing them to be who they already were.

Thanks for your input!

I'm going to attempt to run the poll without giving my personal thoughts...

I find the idea of enviromental polution to explain why I am the way I am rather silly really.

Prior to being born, my mother lived in a deep, rural community in  Saskatchewan. Water came from snow melt. It was the 1950s.

My understanding is that most of the enviromental, hormonal polution is attributed to women using birth control pills and possibly hormonal contamination of meat. Both of these came later.

But as Julie says, the internet has allowed more discussion and society is changing, as it always does and should, of course.

Edit, silly misspelling. 

To Julie's point, some parents are growing more sensitive to the condition due to more positive programming on TV. Add the research capabilities of the internet, and you will have more trans kids both able to act upon their GV (gender variance) condition, and thus will be able to stand up and be counted.

If parents do the research, and can get their child into a qualified gender therapist, then you will see a whole generation of better balanced kids who are able to transition at earlier and earlier ages.

This sounds like a win-win to me. Children, however, need the support of the school districts for anti-bullying rules. Teachers and administrators need to be trained to teach the other children how to be sensitive to their GV classmate. More and more school districts are starting to "get it".

I do think, in the 1950-60's,  that their were more effects of environmental and medicinal contamination of children in the womb. DES(?) administered by doctors for women's difficult pregnancies, in addition to chemicals having made their way into the groundwater. Both toxins caused estrogen to spike within women and children in utero, interfering with 'normal' fetus development.

Again, seems like we have both nature and nuture things happening....

The poll is too limited  in options to answer.
I would say that the incidence is no higher than it was a 1000 years ago. However with modern media often makeing us the show of the day more are becoming aware that treatment is available. As we grow to a more tolerant country the rate of reported casses must naturaly go up. But I do not believe that the media is over reporting or that the media is responsible for anyone being trans.

juliekins

I was under the impression that the contamination of water by sex hormones was traced back to the advent of the birth control pill.

I am interested in your assertion about contamination in the 50s.

Do you have any more information.

Incidently, though not to contradict or prejudge your response, but I had an uncle, on my father's side who was born in the 1900s. He attempted to change his sex after WW2.

Amoung the environmental factors are such things as:

- Artificial hormones in the food chain, particulary in chicken and beef.  DES^* is only the tip of that chain.
- Chemicals in the water resulting from both industrial waste, as well as people flushing drugs into the sewer system.
- Long term effects of EMR for people living close too, or working near huge electrical power delivery systems. (this stuff has never been studied at any depth)
- radioactive contamination from atmospheric and underground 'tests' of nuclear weapons
- The combined effect of the chemical soup we've all been a part of for a few generations now - and none of that interaction has ever been studied either.




* - Diethylstilbestrol, a synthetic, nonsteroidal estrogen, is used now primarily for treatment of urinary incontinence in spayed female dogs.  It was developed for the cattle industry.

Ultimately, we can never know how big a factor the environment is in the increased numbers of REPORTED GID in children because we can not know how common it was one hundred years ago, or two, because there's no documentation and the phenomenon wasn't considered what it is today.

I don't know the numbers of children with GID.

If it is higher though, I blame the internet (I can certainly blame the internet for myself.)

I voted other because I believe that while the instance of gender incongruence in children hasn't gone up much, the reporting, and treatment, of said persons has increased dramatically.

As one of the very rare child cases from the 1960's I do NOT believe the number of sufferers has risen in the slightest.

I also do NOT believe that it is over reported.

What I do believe is that back in the 1960's it was only the odd lucky souls like me who had a parent who was a producer of medical radio programmes, and who therefore knew about the condition, who got identified and treated.

These days with the internet and TV programmes every Tom Dick & Harriet has heard of the condition and hence more children are brought for treatment.

So I also vote other.

I reworded one of the choices so that the poll actually makes sense. :-)

In which case please count one "other" vote as a No increase, just an increase in reporting, since there does not seem to be a mechanism to change a vote once cast...

I don't think there are any more cases. I'm not entirely sure what exactly qualifies as reporting, but I think that the appearance of there being more cases is pretty much for two reasons; one being that it's at least more socially acceptable these days than it once was, and two because it's easier for people (like me) who have vague curiousities about ->-bleeped-<- to do a google search, find a site like this, at realize that it may be very relevant to me.